


Vanus Galerion And The Lake Of Fire

by ebsmith



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Big baby! Mannimarco, Carlovac Townway did his research, Cute, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Headcanon, Hint of a crush on Vanus's part, Kid! Vanus, Magic, Mannimarco knows talent when he sees it, Necro-healing is best healing lol, Older/Younger Friendship, Psijic Order, Silly, Sotha-Sil is a good teacher - Mostly, Vanus Is An Arcane Prodigy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21598579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebsmith/pseuds/ebsmith
Summary: One of the many ways in which the God of Worms and the Great Mage may have first met.In the cutest way ever:D
Relationships: Vanus Galerion & Mannimarco
Kudos: 8





	1. A Pleasant Recollection, According to Mannimarco

'Ah, the initiates have arrived!'

Mannimarco always loved watching the newcomers in action. Seeing who had a modicum of promise and who was best left to rot with the rest of the common masses. For even on a scholarly island paradise, there were still common masses.

He approaches Sotha-Sil, who is placidly explaining the basics of fire manipulation to the five- no six! Little Vanus is among them as well then. He smiles to himself at the memory of their first meeting a week hense.

Vanus had no doubt been exploring the Isle, only to stumble into one of Mannimarco's many secret meditation spots.

He had simply been eating his lunch in the small clearing, enjoying the rare cool weather the Council had deigned to allow into the island in honor of the end of the year festivities, when the other had crashed through the hedge in front of him like a blind Minotaur.

He admittedly had been surprised at the time - his meditation spots were secret for a reason after all.

Vanus had been just as surprised to see him there as well...

* * *

Mannimarco looks the boy over. A nest of twigs and several inconvenienced insects stuck in his choppy brown hair and his otherwise new Initiate's gown a size too large, trailing threads from what looked like many such struggles in the brush.

"You could have entered from the east you know," he says helpfully.

"What? No I can't!" the boy insists. "It’s blocked off by the rock ledge."

"Look closer from this side," he comments, idly taking a bite of his sandwich. He points with his thumb to the aforementioned opening. It was indeed difficult to see from the usual approach up the path to the coastal forest, but if one knew where to look, the tangled vines and boughs created a natural arbor under which one could quite easily walk. When the boy finally sees it, his face runs through so many conflicting expressions, Mannimarco is amazed despite himself. 

"I am Mannimarco, a Sage and Advisor. And you?" He shouldn’t expect such a child to make proper introductions, he supposes.

The boy looks over at him in surprise from his intense scrutiny of that formerly hidden path and blushes.

"Ah, I’m Tre- I mean," he coughs awkwardly. "I am Vanus Galerion," he manages to state with a decent bit of aplomb. "An Initiate," while bowing a little too low.

Mannimarco ignores the slight. "Pleased to meet you," he says cordially.

"Ah, likewise," Vanus answers back, smiling shyly at him now.

He really couldn't resist. "So Vanus Galerion, how many times _h_ _ave_ you entered this space through that hedge?"

The boy's smile gives way to being completely caught out. "Uh.." he stutters. "...seven?" He finally answers, his face reddening with each passing second.

' _Seven_ times? Mannimarco can't say what answer he expectd, but it certantly wasnt that. He can now only stare at that opening, and then back at the thick underbrush that Vanus had burst from. There was a reason his spots were secret, but to muck his way through that _seven_ times? He looks at the disheveled boy once again, threads and twigs and all, and bursts out laughing. 

After a hearty moment, he clamps his hand over his mouth to stifle himself and looks up again. He fully expects the boy to have run away crying, but to his surprise, and immediate respect, he not only isn't crying, he’s giving Mannimarco what had to be the nastiest look he had ever been on the receiving end of, and given who Mannimarco was, that was impressive.

Toning down the sharpness of his glee, he attempts a reconciliation. "Come now Vanus, you must admit, it is rather funny."

The boy's glare shifts to the side and Mannimarco, to his delight, can swear he sees a tiny twitch at the corner of that small, oddly serious mouth, before he huffs imperiously and stalks from the clearing through the newly discovered entrance, as if he had known it was there all along.

Mannimarco's humor doesn't falter one bit at that.

'Perhaps', he muses to himself, 'things are finally becoming interesting around here!'


	2. The Clearing, According to Vanus Galerion:

Vanus _had_ been out exploring the Isle, as excited and awestruck as any kid, or anyone at all really, would be at the prospect of living on a magic island paradise.

He’s out walking a heavily wooded path near the sea when he notices a pattern to the treetops that suggests there is a clearing within. Except no matter how hard he looks, he can’t see his way through the brush to the inside!

So naturally, he dives into the scrub and fights his way in a straight-line right to the center, and lo and behold, erupts into a beautiful little grotto, butted up against crumbling white stone cliffs. He flops onto his back, grins triumphantly at the sky, and stays there the rest of the day.

~

He goes back there six more times over the next few weeks, whenever he's not in lessons or discovering some other wonder of this place. On this most recent visit, he fights his way through the brush as usual, but is startled to find someone in his spot.

A Mer. A very handsome Mer, who was currently staring back at him with wide amber eyes- and with a piece of bacon dangling from the corner of his mouth. Vanus stifles his grin at the picture it makes, not wanting to be rude. He notices that this mer is very put together and not at all disheveled and dirty like he himself was. 'Maybe he levitated into the area,' Vanus thinks. Master Sotha says he'll learn that next year.

He is startled again when the mer speaks, with a voice that’s deep and posh and right out of one of Heliand's plays. "You could have come in from the east," he says, and for a moment, Vanus has no idea what he's talking about.

Then it hits him and he blurts out, "no I can't!"

And then that storybook mer says "look closer."

And Vanus does look closer to where he points and- 'but, but how!' he thinks furiously to himself. He hadn’t been able to see that at all from the path! Then: oh now he sees it! The gravel of the cliffs is retarding the growth of the vines right in the corner there, and- but wait, where exactly was this, from way on the other side of-   
  
"I am Mannimarco: a Sage and Advisor," and Vanus startles yet again.

'I’m being rude!' Vanus thinks in a slight panic and quickly makes to introduce himself- but almost with the wrong name! "Dammit," he says under his breath, but the mer doesn't pay his stupid slip any mention, simply saying "pleased to meet you."   
  
'He seems kind,' Vanus thinks, observing the mer's -Mannimarco's- relaxed smile towards him.

Vanus allows himself to smile back. "Likewise" he says, and means it.

But then Mannimarco smirks at him and asks him just how many times he'd been through the hedge in order to enter here, and Vanus is so startled by the question he blurts out the answer.

Then Mannimarco starts laughing at him! And never mind that that laugh, with that long white hair of his shivering over his iridescent gray robes, puts him in mind of Betiel's paintings of the Magna-Ge (beautiful winged beings of pure Light and Reason), he's a jerk! And Vanus glares at him to show him just how much of a jerk he is!

And now that jerk is smiling at him kindly again and saying in that awful voice of his "come now Vanus, it's funny!" and Vanus glares at him even harder.

Except, well... the hedge had a depression in it now, from all the times he had shoved his way through. If he went through a few more times, he might even have a real path! And, he feels something crawling around in his hair - probably a stick insect - and he nearly giggles at the tickle of it. But no, he's still mad!

With a final Really Hard Glare, (the best he had, Numiel had said so!) Vanus storms from that clearing without even a goodbye.   
  
'That'll show him!'


	3. Sotha-Sil's Introduction to Fire Manipulation:

Trechtus, now Vanus Galerion, is 11 and 5/8 years old. He has been a Psijic Initiate for all of 3 months now and he is getting ready to face fire. Literally. He's standing on the edge of Sotha-Sil's flaming fire pit with his fellow initiates, four High Elves and one Wood Elf. 

The pit before them is relatively tame - for Sotha anyway. About 12x12 ft. and heaped with pitch-black anthracite, and tall pillars of flame rising from each of the four corners as well as the center of the square. "Now," the Master intones, "each of you will take a small handful of the fire before you. Do not rush: This is not an exam, and there is no pass or fail here. Treat this as an opportunity to test yourselves on your understanding of the material."

Vanus looks around at his peers. They are all looking nervously at each other and are, as usual, paying him no mind at all. He ignores them in turn and approaches the pillar to his right. 'Master Sotha says it's mine to control.' He thinks of the previous week’s demonstrations, of Sotha and Minerva summoning tiny flames from their fingertips, lighting candles and such. Two of the initiates had scoffed at the simple tricks, for they claimed to be able to shoot rivers of fire from their hands. Sotha, to Vanus's glee, just looked at them unimpressed. "You know spells," he had said. “Mindless, over-simplified nonsense that makes lighting bonfires and street lamps less of a chore. You do not know its Nature. You do not Understand it." Vanus right then had decided he wanted to Understand it. All of it. 

He holds his hand up to the tower of flame. It heats his hand pleasantly and he thinks of that pleasantness, that burn, as he reaches in to touch. The flames wrap around his fingers licking his skin. It burns and his breath catches. He pulls his hand away but his fingers are fine and he grins. 'They aren't even warm!' he thinks giddly. He reaches in again, more confident. His whole hand nearly catches then, but it hurts in a bad way and he has to pull out. 'No' he says to himself firmly. 'It’s mine and it’s Good'. He reaches in again, stubbornly remembering the good-burn from before, and successfully plucks out a handful of flame. 'Oh' he breathes as he cradles the fire to himself, he doesn’t think he's ever been so happy in his entire life! The feel of this Power in his hands, his Power, nearly eclipses even the memory of his arrival on the Psijic Isle! He turns around to show Master Sotha and- 

"Ahhhh!" The scream startles him and he looks over to see that wood elf girl's arm on fire. She's batting at it furiously, only managing to spread it worse, flinging it around her in big clumps of flaming pitch that never extinguished. "What’re you doing that for?" He cries, still high on his wonderful new discovery. "It doesn’t hurt! See?" And he bounds over to her and simply swipes the fire from her arm and into his other hand like it were an especially large insect. Made of pure fire. He giggles at that thought and holds the flame out to her. "See?" He says again, grinning ear to ear. The girl - and all the other students - recoil in horror and he just can't understand it. 

'What's wrong with them,' he thinks to himself, now angry and confused at their reactions. 'Don’t they see they can control it? Oh and it felt amazing! To think, he's had this kind of power inside him all his life without ever knowing it! It was unbelievable!' The others gone from his mind once more, he steps backwards into the nearest column and lets the flame wash over him, throwing his head back and reveling in the prickling burn on his skin.

~

The boy "Vanus Galerion" is covered in fire head to toe, his hands blackening with blisters and his robes slowly charring and he's just laughing and laughing. Mannimarco can only stare, his own mouth now stretched in a mad grin. Master Sotha turns to him with one eyebrow raised and he meets His stare with zero shame. Sotha just shakes his head.

"Okay that’s enough," Sotha calls out while waving his hand, extinguishing all the flame in one dainty flick of his wrist. The boy looks up at the Master, obviously put out and - contrite? He shuffles foot to foot, the soles of his shoes flaking off. "Was that okay?" He asks softly and Mannimarco frowns. 'Of course it was!' He thinks, 'how could he possibly think otherwise?' Mannimarco was ashamed to admit that he himself had not done so well with Sotha’s little "evaluation" on his first go - and he was centuries older than this boy at the time!

Sotha seems to agree at least. "Yes Vanus" he smiles, "You did very well. The best I have ever seen in fact. You will need to refine your attention to personal resistance but that will come with practice. Today's activity was merely an evaluation of everyone's base understanding of the principles. Now, go see Umara in the east wing, she will deal with those burns. As for the rest of you..."

Oblivious to Sotha’s disappointed lecture to the others - and the others' downright venomous looks at Vanus - Vanus looks down at himself with wide eyes, only now noticing the state he is in. Mannimarco chuckles at the sight and the boy jerks his head up at the sound and finally notices him too. He meets his eyes and smiles genuinely. The boy - to his credit ha! - Looks at him in clear suspicion but smiles back tentatively when he sees he's not being mocked. Mannimarco waves him over and he frowns again but comes anyway.

"You were extraordinary, you know. Why ever would you think otherwise?" He asks him as they walk in the general direction of the med wing. Vanus looks up at him in surprise, his nose tellingly red at the praise. Then he drops his head in a scowl. "I... I don’t know.” 

'Humph. I do' Mannimarco thinks to himself with his own scowl. 'Far be it from the common man and mer to accept and encourage their True Betters in anything, especially the Noble pursuits'. 

Vanus startles as a big hand drops onto his shoulder. "Talent such as ours will always be feared and envied. You are clearly better than all of them Vanus. Don’t ever let them make you believe otherwise." 

The boy is scowling at him now, oy. "How would you know?! And besides, I’m not...” He trails off, looking down again.

"You’re not what? I know who you are: I did the sensible thing and asked around after our first encounter. The question is Vanus, why didn’t you do the same for me? Or," he looks up thoughtfully now, "do you actually prefer I call you "Trechtus"?"

"Never say that name in my presence again!" The boy spits, with a vitriol that surprises him. "Alright, alright, Vanus Galerion it is. So Vanus, do you know who I am?"

~

"You're Mannimarco. You introduced yourself last time. Or don't you remember?" Vanus dares to snark back. He may not have asked after the strange - and rude - mer, but he could observe just fine thank you very much! Ever since that surprise meeting in the clearing, Vanus couldn't NOT see him. Standing in a group of students - or even masters, chatting or discussing something or other, pontificating. Vanus knew the type. An "Important Person" doing "Important Things.” A Noble. The type who would spit on him so much as look at him, even as they depended on "his kind" for everything they took for granted. He'd seen enough of that to last him 100 lifetimes and he wanted no part of it.

"That I am, dear Vanus," Mannimarco chuckles yet again, to Vanus's irritation. Or something. 'This guy...'

He suddenly steps out directly in front of Vanus, who jerks to a stop an inch short of running face first into his chest and - "give me your hands" he demands. 

"Why?" Vanus demands back, just as rash.

"Oh come on!"

"Ugh fine!" Vanus acquiesces out of pure curiosity.

Vanus holds his blistered hands out in front of him palms up. Mannimarco looks down at them - at him - eyes sharp and focused. Vanus fights the urge to fidget under the scrutiny. He takes one of those hands in both his own, far gentler than Vanus expected. He carefully yet confidently examines both sides, running the pads of his fingers and the tips of his long nails over the lines of his palm, prodding the edges of the blisters and feeling out the extent of his injuries. Vanus gasps a few times in not-quite pain at the palpitation but thankfully Mannimarco - unlike every other adult who had treated him in such a way - did not comment, just continued his examination. 

He does the same to the other hand, and then takes one each in his own, holding their arms out from their sides as if they were getting ready to dance. Mannimarco closes his eyes and gold light blooms from their joined hands. Vanus, to his shock, doesn’t feel a thing except pleasant tingling warmth. He'd been healed a few times like this before, for injuries on the job while in the caravan, and once by the chattel physician at his old... that place, after an especially nasty beating for some unremembered slight, but each time it was unpleasant at best. And pure agony at worst. 

He opens his eyes, not entirely aware he had closed them, and looks down at himself, following the gold light from his now uninjured hands to the rest of his body. 'How can that?!' He stares in shock as the light saturates his robes and leaches over the burnt edges, seeming to repair the cloth as well. Only not completely. The silk now looked moth-eaten instead of burnt by fire. He scowls and jerks his hands out of Mannimarco’s grasp at that thought -

"Argh!"

\- and startles at the other's outcry. "Sorry," Vanus mumbles in apology, forcing himself to look up at the other.

Mannimarco glares down at him, pointedly massaging his fingers. Far down at him. Vanus is now even more conscious of their two-head height difference. He tries again with more respect. "Thank you for the healing," he says sincerely, rubbing his own hands. He was in fact healed too. Better than healed. Several thin scars on his left wrist were now nonexistent. "How did you do that to my clothes too?"

"Humph. Your thanks are not necessary," he states in such an absurdly grandiose way that Vanus can't help but snicker aloud. Horrified at himself, he slaps his hand over his mouth in reflex, but Mannimarco seems to pay it no mind. "I did it to prove a point: who am I, you ask?" (Vanus didn’t actually ask.) "I am, simply put, the greatest ma- student, to ever set foot on this island!” And now Vanus has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing outright at that "almost mage" bit. 'Afraid Master Sotha will overhear, are you?'

"As for your clothes, that's a technique I invented myself. Do you wish to learn it?" 

Vanus looks back up at Mannimarco, who he notes is smiling at him now in the same way he had in that clearing - after he'd had his fun. But Vanus isn't mad about that anymore, not really, so he smiles back. "Yes I do. But after we finish in the med wing," He then states firmly, crossing his arms in point.

Mannimarco looks at him bug eyed and Vanus doesn't hide his snickering this time. "What? You’re still just a stranger you know. And,” he announces as haughtily as his diminutive, low-born self can manage, “I want a second opinion!"

"Fine Vanus Galerion! You will have your 'second opinion.' Come on then!" Mannimarco marches off toward the College east wing with purpose and Vanus follows obediently behind, shaking his head at the very odd mer who had taken an interest in him. And he'd thought his troubadour friends were strange! 'But strange and wonderful,' he thinks with an extra bounce in his step. 'Perhaps I’ll ask around after all - starting with the Ritemaster of course!'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that conversation, 😹


End file.
